The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption could be seen from space. Image: Twitter/Screenshot
Lisala Folau, a 57-year-old retired carpenter, spent more than a day floating alone at sea following the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano on January 15. It’s a story as wild as it sounds.
Folau is a resident of Atata, a small island populated by fewer than a hundred people and about 40 miles away from Tonga. He was painting his home when a tsunami warning came from his brother so he initially climbed a tree for safety. Folau, who has a disability that makes walking difficult, waited for a lull with a small group of people. They climbed down when the seas receded, intending to find higher ground and that’s when an even bigger wave washed through the area and carried Folau away.
“I just turned and looked at the wave, it was a bigger wave than the six meters that destroyed our house,” he said in an interview.
Unable to get back to his family and knowing they’d be searching for him, Folau spent the next 12 hours floating before getting a glimmer of hope. He spotted a police patrol boat and grabbed a rag hoping to flag them down. He drifted or swam to a second deserted island nearby and then again to the main island of Tongatapu, totaling almost five miles and more than 26 hours spent at sea.
Mr. Folau said in an interview he thought about his family the whole time he was missing, admitting they’d worry that “maybe he died.”
“And it was the manna of God to me and my family, and the church as well as Atata,” he said after, “so unexpected that I survived after being washed away, floating and surviving the dangers I just faced.”
Sadly, Atata has been devastated by the same tsunami that sent Folau out to sea. Tongan naval boats are reportedly still surveying the small island and evacuating whomever they can to the main islands. The tsunami has killed at least three and left the Tongan population of just over 100,000 without communications while ravaging villages across the island chain.
